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Hello, Debbie here using craigs forum, thanks, new to boating, would like to know what you say instead of hello to other boaters?

I’ve been trying to get a handle on what the increase might be in people choosing to live aboard boats across the Inland Waterways system -- say over the past five years. It’s proving more difficult than I thought. Does anyone know of some good surveys or data out there? Here’s what I’ve discovered so far. Liveaboards in London: 1,615 continuous cruisers were sighted in London in the March 2016 5th annual boat count -- which was an increase of 390 extra boats over the previous year. In 2012 there were 638 CCers; 2013 = 769; 2014 = 1,031; 2015 = 1,225. [Report of a CRT Users Forum, Oct 2016 ] “Last year Greater London saw a 34% increase in continuous cruisers” [CityMetric article, Mar 2015 -- doesn’t quite fit with the above.] Liveaboards across the system: A 2008 boaters’ survey conducted by BW included the question “Is your boat your main residence?”, to which 18% answered yes as a main or Mon-Fri residence. Extrapolating from this, BW estimated that there were about 5,400 residential boat on their waterways (out of about 32,000). The EA estimated that there were just over 309 vessels and static houseboats on Agency waters (out of about 23,000). The Broads Authority estimated less than 50 boats used as a main residence (out of about 12,000). -- [These are all from the AINA Advisory Document Residential Use of Waterways, 2011] A separate difficulty is distinguishing liveaboards from continuous cruisers. From our own (south of Braunston) experience I’d guess that about 50% of continuously cruising boats are usually uninhabited. (I’m not making judgements here, I’m interested in the liveaboard aspect.) Is this people’s perception generally, or am I way off? Thanks for any insights.